CONGO: Renegade fighters in eastern Congo have vowed to take the border town of Bukavu after driving back government troops in clashes which threatened a UN-brokered truce.
Gen Laurent Nkunda, a former rebel commander leading an armed column of some 1,000 troops, said his men were now 15km north of Bukavu and moving towards the town, which is in a rugged, mountainous region bordering Rwanda.
"When we stopped, the enemy advanced against us. We are now advancing until we stop the genocide," he said.
Gen Nkunda and his troops, who are now supposed to be part of Congo's new national army, hail from Congo's Banyamulenge tribe, which has long complained of attacks by security forces and civilians because of its ethnicity.
They say they are fighting to protect their fellow tribesmen, thousands of whom have fled into Rwanda since the latest bout of bloodletting in the Democratic Republic of Congo's lawless east began last week.
UN officials said they were investigating the abuse allegations although some Bukavu residents said the fighting boiled down to a turf war with former rebels used to laying down the law in their fiefdoms and reluctant to join a new national army.
"To stop the genocide we will take the town. I want to take this responsibility to protect my people," said Gen Nkunda, one of three senior officers who snubbed a swearing-in ceremony for the new army in the capital, Kinshasa, last September.
The renegade soldiers are mostly former rebel fighters from the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), the main rebel faction in Congo's five-year war.
At least 45 people have been killed in and around Bukavu in nearly a week of violence which has dealt a body blow to the peace process in Congo, where a transition government including former foes is struggling to administer the vast nation.